Look at my bookmarks on Naval readiness. Nothings changed since Poppy took over but the names. Poppy and Clinton ran a CV to death literally to the point of a boiler room Boom not a word mentioned in early 1994 after three deployments. One band-aid later it went to Philly retired ahead of it's class. Look at the botched SLEP done on JFK. Strange Kitty which was senior of it's class outlasted them all including JFK class.
We had parts shortages but we never flunked INSURV. I knew one of the inspectors as he was our former MPA. The man was a genius and could rattle off valve numbers and locations off the top of his head including the AC&R gear.
The Navy like all other services is over deployed using too little assets for too long at a time. You start missing yard periods, in port maintenance time, or have rushed ones and bad things happen. The main difference between now and the Carter years is we weren't being ran ragged for every little gnat poop emergency. We had the ships to cover the downtimes as well. Carters Navy would have flew apart just like the one of today has done since Poppy started downsizing. There's many misconceptions out there the public buys into and some may soon be proved to be untrue. One being a Nuclear Powered ship for example can deploy indefinitely. No they can't they'll fly apart every bit as quick as a conventional. The Reactor might take the abuse but the Auxiliaries simply won't.
You'll also remember for example to replace certain pieces of equipment meaning everything from ovens in the galley to much of the equipment in the engine room you must cut open the decks to get to it. That means required yard time.
I think today's military unless some of the so called leadership wakes up is gonna start cracking or showing major fatigue. That can be anything from crew morale to major equipment failures. All must be considered and addressed. To their credit the services have endured which speaks volumes for their stick to it and determination.
The leadership at the top like Bush hasn't nor has congress helped matters. I say Bush because he is current CIC. Bush is no better a CIC than Clinton. Actually nothing much has changed except a smaller Navy in ships since Bush took over. The military in general has been on emergency deployment status since Gulf War One and has yet to gear up for it. On the contrary. More is being demanded of both service-member and equipment while downsizing continues. We are operating on 1996 End Troop Strengths in all branches active duty. The so called adults help never came. Now we are in a war that again neither Congress nor POTUS is making any plans whatsoever in addressing the mentioned issues. Rummy's "you go to war with what you have" speech was one of the sorriest cop out's I ever heard in my life. How come six months into his tenure he didn't know two carriers were undeployable? You see there is the real problem. Political leadership completely detached from military realities.
Forward to September 2001. The United States comes under attack and able bodied men are pounding on military recruiters doors and being turned away. Yet all the time our POTUS is strutting around getting ready to take us to war. The opportunity of a lifetime for the GOP to turn our military back around was wasted. All because the GOP congress and GOP POTUS was more interested in nation building as foreign policy and doing a LBJ Great Society Part 2 on domestic policy with the military left out in the cold. There is no excuse for example that troops are seeing one year plus deployments into Iraq for three and four times. PPP=PPP
It is not justifiable what congress in both parties and their parties POTUS for 18 years has done to the military. I blame them all beginning with Poppy Bush. Yes even the Virginia Senator Old Sleepy Eyes who chaired the Senate Armed Services Committee during much of the so called GOP Majority did nothing and he too knew things were going to crap. These people knew better. Bush knows better. You can't blame DEMs when the GOP didn't even try.